Picture this:
Alice and Ben are trapped in a panic room and Carl is having a nervous breakdown, Ben finds something sticking in a wall, a red box saying: "In Case of Crisis within a panic room, break glass."
Naturally Alice and Ben oblige and break the glass with the tiny hammer.

Two different events can happen at this point:

The thing inside the glass is just what Alice and Ben were looking for to have Carl calm down. The panic attack within the panic room has been averted. And there was much rejoicing.

Or, the thing turns out to be totally useless, but it doesn't stop Alice and Ben from using it anyway. Somehow. And it either works or just makes the situation worse.

In case of examples, read below:

In Sonic The Hedgehog In Castle Robotnik after a power-cut Sonic and Tails are stuck in an Elevator and after ages of trying to prize off the emergency hatch with their hands they notice a box with a spanner in it designed to remove the bolts fixing the hatch closed.

Double Subverted in The Hardship of Miles Standish, John Aldin (played by Elmer Fudd) finds a glass case reading "In Case of Indians, Break Glass". He simply lifts the glass up and takes out the gun behind it...then he breaks the glass.

In Kitty Kornered, Porky takes out a gun from behind glass when he thinks he's being attacked by martians. He lampshades it by asking who put it there.

In the Family Guy episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", when a group of nuns get word of Peter entering a synagogue, they rush toward a case reading "In Case Of Heresy, Break Glass" and smash it to reveal rules behind it.

In The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror V, Homer goes insane after being forced to go a long time without TV or beer. Marge runs across a glass case that says, "In Case of Spousal Insanity, Break Glass", where she finds a baseball bat.

An episode of CatDog has the titular character travel into an exotic land to suddenly steal the throne from Rancid Rabbit. Rancid goes back to a case that says, "In Case of Emergency, Break Grass".

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